


the prize we sought is won

by ideal_girl (trainwreckdress)



Category: Firefly RPF, Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-25
Updated: 2010-12-25
Packaged: 2019-06-05 13:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15172007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trainwreckdress/pseuds/ideal_girl
Summary: "You'll always be their captain, even when it's--" Nathan stops, words cracked by harsh laughter. "You know."





	the prize we sought is won

**Author's Note:**

> Note from diana, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Pretty Lights](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Pretty_lights), which closed for financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Pretty Lights collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/prettylights/profile).
> 
>  
> 
> References: 
> 
> "O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;  
> The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;  
> The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,  
> While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:  
> But O heart! heart! Heart!  
> O the bleeding drops of red,  
> Where on the deck my Captain lies,  
> Fallen cold and dead." – Walt Whitman, "O Captain! My Captain!" 
> 
> "It was very hard to take myself seriously. I'm six-foot, I weigh about a buck sixty-five, went to private school, and grew up in the Valley — I wouldn't follow me into battle." – Chris Pine, EW.com 
> 
> Lew Temple has been in Waitress with Nathan Fillion, and Unstoppable with Chris Pine. He was my Kevin Bacon in this affair.

He's not ready for it when it happens, when he walks into a room and everyone just stops. 

Faces, upturned, some with smiles, others with grins. Waiting. For him. 

"As you were," Chris jokes, waves his right hand in the air in a lazy exclamation point. He ducks his head, presses his chin to his chest and makes for the coffee. 

"'O Captain! My Captain!'" Zach's voice is in his ear, his shoulder pressed against Chris's back. "Could you pass the sugar, please?" His voice lilts, bastardizes the rhythm of the original prose. 

Chris snorts, shoves a couple of sugar packets in Zach's face. "You know he's talking about his dead captain, right?" 

Zach tips the white crystals into his steaming cup, lifts what's left of his eyebrows. "Your point?" 

* 

He's not ready for it when it happens, when he walks into a room and everyone just shatters. 

"Oh, Nathan." Gina's eyes are shining as she hugs him. She broke the rule, too: She fell in love -- with the character, the story, the damned ship, even. 

Their grief is like a weight on his chest, and he already has his own to carry, far too much to bear. But he wipes tears from under Summer's red-rimmed eyes and claps Adam on the back. Jewel clings to him, both arms locked around his waist and her head resting on his shoulder. "You gave me the stars," she murmurs into his neck, her sniffles muffled by the collar of his shirt. 

He keeps his voice steady as he talks to Sean in low tones about "what happens now?" 

* 

Three years later, Nathan walks in a room and everything's moving; Summer, Morena, and Jewel are swirls of color against the muted browns of the set. 

He doesn't realize that he's been standing there like a statue until Adam slaps him on the back so hard he stumbles forward. Adam's already swallowed up in the maze of scenery when he offers up a "Let's get a move on, Captain!" over the cacophony of the crew. 

Nathan wants to tell himself that he can't fall in love again; that even this gift is fleeting. But he's a terrible liar, so he doesn't say anything. 

* 

"I'd follow you into battle," Zoe smirks around the straw of her brightly colored drink. "Pretty sure I already have." 

"That's because you're being paid." Chris's beer is sweating, the brown glass slippery and treacherous in his hand. "And you think I'm handsome. And that joke is so 2008." 

"One of those things is true." The comment is thrown over her shoulder, as she dives back into the fray of the party, her hair a bouncing shift behind her. 

Chris is calculating the best way to leave the party with minimal notice and maximum efficiency when Lew materializes to his left with drinks in both hands. 

"Didn't know you were here, my man!" There's some juggling of drinks, back slaps and shoulder bumps. Chris tips his beer back, drains it. "That extra for me?" 

"Wouldn't you love that," Lew smirks, tilts his head toward the crowd. "Naw, did a solid for Nathan, he had to glad-hand a couple of ABC suits." 

"Hmmm." Chris purses his lips together as he carefully stashes the bottle in the potted plant stylishly set at the edge of the pool. "Well, if that's the case, I'll be right back--" 

"But I just got here!" And there's Nathan, two drinks in hand, passing one over to Chris as he smiles with his whole face -- lips, cheeks, eyes -- and it looks like he means it. He presses one of the beers into Chris's hand, outstretched instinctively, plucks the extra from Lew. "These two are for me." 

Lew sighs, but the put-upon tone is faked, his eyes are kind and affectionate. "You two know each other?" 

"Not properly," Chris says, shifting his beer to his left hand, proffering his hand before he realizes that Nathan doesn't have a free hand to return the gesture. But Nathan loops the long fingers of his left hand around the bottle necks, threads them between his knuckles. Nathan's right hand is cool and a little damp against Chris's; their palms slide hotly against each other. 

"Nathan Fillion," he says, that smile replaced with something a little more mischievous. "You had the pleasure of working with Lew here, too, I hear. Little movie with a train? I hear the kids these days love that Thomas the Tank Engine." 

Chris snorts behind his beer, decides this guy's all right. 

* 

Zoe checks in with him -- on him -- at least three times while he and Nathan exploit the fact that everyone else is dancing and there's plenty of space to stretch out on the surprisingly comfortable furniture discretely tucked around the yard's edge. Lew had rolled his eyes after the first 10 minutes of their raucous discussion, tapping his watch and making noises about his kids. ("Already missed bathtime, so I'm on overnight duty in case someone wakes up with a nightmare about mutant polar bears." "Hey, man, that wasn't my fault, she wanted to know – kid's gotta grow up sometime!" "She's five, Chris." "A very mature five!") Zoe brings him water, asks him for the second time if he's got a car to get home, wants to know if she can come over next Thursday to drink his wine and monopolize his dog. 

"They'll never stop, you know?" Nathan says, after Zoe leaves, during that comfortable lull in conversation that happens when watching a beautiful woman walk away. Chris cuts his eyes away from the sway of Zoe's back; the look on Nathan's face is faraway, dreamy, his chin tipped skyward. 

"Who won't stop what?" Chris thinks he'll have a hangover tomorrow, but it'll be a pleasant one -- the kind that makes the world sharper, senses more present. Sunglasses, a racing heart, and a diner breakfast, but no tile marks on his face from a date with the bathroom floor. 

"You'll always be their captain, even when it's--" Nathan stops, words cracked by harsh laughter. "You know." 

Chris closes his eyes, his blood humming pleasantly. "That's not me, though." Nathan's hand is warm on the back of his neck. Chris leans into the touch, his fingers twitching against his thighs. "I'm just a guy from the Valley." 

"Naw." Nathan squeezes Chris's neck firmly, claps him on the shoulder and uses the leverage to ease himself out of the chair. He tidies his cuffs, cutting a shadow against the night sky. "You gave them the stars." 

FIN


End file.
